


A Timely Encounter

by Kelette



Category: Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Series, Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Prequel, Sequel, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 16:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelette/pseuds/Kelette
Summary: Raine Sage is going about her usual day, when a mysterious half-elf, Arche Klein and self-proclaimed Witch of Time, teleports into her life with a bang. While Arche struggles to find a way back home, her encounters with Raine and Genis shape their future.  (Prequel to Symphonia, sequel to Phantasia).





	A Timely Encounter

Raine Sage blinked. Her half-elven blood allowed her to gauge the amount of mana nearby, but currently she felt nothing, like she had been blinded by a bright light from an explosion.

Raine blinked again. The explosion actually had blinded both her vision and mana sensitivity. Slowly both returned. 

“Hey, are you okay?” A voice asked in what resembled a strange dialect of elven.

The woman before her peered out from a pile of fizzy pink hair, providing a bright contrast to her pitch black outfit.

Raine vaguely wondered if the woman was in mourning, but what type of mourner went around exploding into existence?

Exploding into existence.

“Raine! What’s going on?”

Raine snapped her head around to find her little brother. His mana sensitivity was even more precise than hers. “Genis! Go back to the house.” Raine gripped the staff at her side and glared at the woman. “Are you from Tethe'alla?”

The woman’s left hand stabbed a giant sword into the ground while the other struggled to balance a broomstick. Raine had never seen such a strange combination. “One of the moons? I’ve never been there.” 

So the stranger had nothing useful to offer her. Raine raised her staff. “I don’t know who you are, but you should stay away from us.”

The woman scratched the back of her head. “Or what, you’ll cast a healing spell on me?”  
Raine faltered, stumbling back.

The other grinned. “I can feel your mana, y’know. The light magic is there, but it isn’t strong enough for you to have learned any attack spells yet.”

“Who are you?” Raine asked. 

“I am the Witch of Time, Arche Klein,” the woman bowed at the waist. “May I have your names?”

Raine noticed the plural just as tiny hands grasped her pants. “Genis, I thought I told you to go back to the house.”

Genis gave no indication that her heard Raine’s words, instead staring at the so-called Witch of Time in amazement.

Arche grinned and crouched down, laying her broomstick behind her. “What’s your name?” she asked softly, even though she had no doubt heard Raine use it.

“Genis,” Raine’s little brother answered just as softly. “There was a lot of mana just now.”

Genis had spoken in common --his elven wasn’t as good as Raine’s --and Arche frowned. “T-too much mana?” She glanced up for confirmation from Raine, who gave it. “I’m sorry if I scared you! The time-space around here is incredibly distorted. I hope I’ll be able to get back?” Arche laughed, but the laughter dropped off her face a moment later. “Well, I guess there’s no rush.” 

Genis frowned, unable to understand the long and strange string of almost-elven.

Raine stepped in front of her brother. “Come on Genis, it’s not safe in the woods.” She noticed Arche staring up at her with a thoughtful expression and panic surged through her stomach. Raine took a deep breath. She had to stay calm. If she panicked, there was no one else to look after Genis. 

Raine took Genis firmly by the hand and walked away with him. It wasn’t until they had reached the door to the house that Raine noticed another incidence of the plural. 

“I’ve never been to the moons,” the woman had said. But only one moon (the one called Tethe'alla) hung in Sylverant’s sky.

**

Arche watched the duo go. Both were clearly half-elves, and from the older sister’s caution, it was likely that half-elves were discriminated against even this far back in the past. Arche wondered when the the discrimination had started, and why.

Arche rose slowly and went back to the Eternal Sword. She carefully wrapped her hand around the hilt and withdrew the blade from the ground, raising it above her head. “Origin!” she called out. 

There was no response.

Arche frowned. She had traveled to times where Origin was bound to another master (and this was why she continued to use Klarth’s rings, even though Origin had explained to her that, as a half-elf, she didn’t actually need to use them. The rings provided a more reliable pact) but even bound to a different pact, Origin would still respond. Instead, in this time, Arche couldn’t even feel the mana of the master of spirits. 

And the world felt too small. Was she even on Aselia anymore?

Arche reached into the bag strapped around her shoulder and pulled out a book. A children’s tale and the only thing she had left of her mother. Perhaps Arche shouldn’t have acted on a whim, but she was incessantly reckless these days.

With a sigh, Arche dropped the book into her bag. 

She jumped when she heard the scream.

Almost thoughtlessly she reached out -- her broomstick flying to her hand --and leaned forward, charging towards the scream of her fellow half-elves.

Arche was able to catch up within seconds on her broom. An eggbear towered over the duo, clawing at an invisible barrier that the older sister (had her brother called her Raine?) struggled to maintain.

Arche spread her arms apart, instantly generating her spell circle. 

“Thunder Blade!”

A clipping roar cut through the air as a sheen of electricity crushed the eggbear.

Arche landed daintily, spinning the broom around and placing her spare hand on her hip. She surveyed the smoking ash the eggbear had left behind. “Overkill, huh?” she spoke in the common she had learned from her birth era. She tried to lean towards overkill, now that she no longer had a team of fighters to cover her back.

A staff clattered to the ground. 

“Are you okay?” Arche found herself asking the half-elven lady again.

The older sister nodded, clutching Genis closer.

“Thank you,” the little boy said. Arche guessed he could be anywhere from four to seven --she wasn’t good with little kid ages. He stared up with large, fascinated eyes.

“You’re welcome!” Arche hoped he understood that much of her elven. Theirs was quite archaic, and Arche had never been much for history.

She really shouldn’t have tried to go so far into the past.

“You said your name was Raine, right?” Arche asked the older sister.

The older sister stared blankly at her staff on the ground, then lifted her head. “I never said that.”

Arche grinned. Raine was a sharp one. Arche offered her hand and was almost surprised when Raine took it, and allowed Arche to pull her up. After steadying herself, Raine’s grip tightened. “Have you ever been to Sylverant?”

Arche had forgotten the half-elf’s strange preoccupation with the moons. “Of course not! I already told you I’d never been to either one.”

Last time, disappointment had welled up in Raine’s eyes. This time, Raine’s gaze sharpened. “What planet are you from?”

“Uh… Aselia?” 

Raine’s hand slipped away and she brought it to her chin. “Aselia? I think there’s a village called that…” 

Raine’s archaic dialect made Aselia sound like Iselia. 

“Village? You asked about planet, right?” Arche crossed her arms. “Wait!” She uncrossed her arms. “This is Aselia, right?”

Raine reached down to pat Genis’ head. “Apparently, the planet we are currently on is called Sylverant.”

“We’re on the moon?!”

“No, this place is too large to be the moon.” Raine stared up at the sky, where a sliver of moon could be seen even though it was still day. “And that moon up there is too small to be Tethe’alla.”

Arche rubbed her head. “What on earth? This is too confusing.”

“Arche Klein, was it? Thank you for saving us. If you don’t have another place to stay, I guess I won’t mind if you spend the night with us. We don’t have a lot,” Raine added hastily, a warning.

Arche’s grin had already taken over her face. “Thank you so much! I’d love to come over!”  
Raine blushed, but nodded. She took Genis’ hand and led the way.

**

Raine and Genis lived in an abandoned house she had found closer to the edge of woods than the outskirts of Palmacosta. After first arriving in Sylverant, Raine had worried that someone might discover their half-elven origins. Already they had to move several times because people started to get suspicious.

Arche immediately settled into the house. Raine was started to relax about the woman now that she had been confirmed as another with mixed blood. 

Genis seemed to like her. He immediately went and grabbed the lady’s baggy black pants. “Thunder blade?” He asked, his face contorted with concentration. Genis was smart for his age, and probably hated speaking such broken sentences. However, Raine didn’t expect him to get the hang of the woman’s elven any time soon.

Raine had been so busy studying Genis’ language frustration that she was unprepared for Arche’s response. Immediately an elemental glyph flickered into existence.

“W-wait, what are you doing?” Raine jumped forward, hoping to stop her.

“Lightning!” Arche shouted directing a slender bolt into a nearby tree. 

“Stop!” Raine gasped for breath, but everything had already happened. Genis and Arche stared at her in silence. Then Arche crouched down, her attention back on Genis. 

“Lightning,” she repeated firmly, this time without the glyph. “It goes before Thunder Blade, okay?”

Genis frowned, focusing every bit of mental energy on Arche’s words.

“Lightning, Thunder Blade, Indignation,” Arche recited the classical spells of elven lightning magic. 

Raine grit her teeth. “That’s enough! Are you trying to teach my brother elemental magic?”

“Well, yeah?” Arche answered, tilting her head up. “He wants to learn, right?”

Genis pointed at the same tree Arche had already struck. “Lightning!” he shouted.

Nothing happened, but Arche clapped her hands excitedly. “Yes! Like that!”

“No, Genis, stop,” Raine commanded, careful to speak in common.

“But sis,” Genis shrunk down. “I want to learn that spell she did.”

“That was intermediate magic, you haven’t even begun to learn beginner spells.”

Genis’ eyes lit up. “So I start with Lightning, right? I thought that’s what she was saying.”

Raine’s eyes flashed to Arche to ensure that she was indeed sitting back on her heels, eyes wide and blank from inability to follow along. 

“Elemental magic is dangerous, Genis, and I don’t have the time to make sure you practice it safely,” Raine told him. 

Genis pouted. As he lowered his head, Raine started to feel guilty. Genis had a hard time expressing himself as it was. Now that she thought about it, seeing Genis confidently standing and speaking, like it had been when mimicking the lightning spell, was a rare sight.

“Excuse me!” Arche’s hand shot up into the air, as though Raine were a teacher. “I don’t understand. What are you two saying?”

Raine huffed. “It’s too dangerous for Genis to learn elemental magic.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have the time to supervise it.”

“I could supervise it,” Arche offered. She shrugged. “I’m kind of stuck here right now, anyway. It’s going to make a while to figure out how to get home.”

Raine suppressed her initial urge to deny the offer. Instead she forced herself to stop and consider it seriously. Arche was powerful. From the mana radiating around her and the ease she cast an intermediate spell, she was even more powerful than most of the elves Raine had briefly known in her life. Raine didn’t want Genis using dangerous magic, but if he could learn a spell that he could defend himself with…

“All right, I have one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You need to learn common. I don’t want Genis learning this butchered version of Elven that you’re speaking.”

Arche groaned and her head dropped between her legs. She straightened suddenly. “All right.”

“That was a quick change,” Raine commented, stepping back.

“I’m stuck here, so I should probably figure out what other people are saying.”

**

An arrangement was hashed out. Arche would sit in on Genis’ lessons in common and then give him the lessons on magic in a language she could barely understand. 

“Not lightning, fireball,” Arche tried to explain. Genis grumped. He had wanted to learn thunder blade, but Arche had used a small spell to determine that he was more aligned with fire magic than lightning magic. “Start with easy spells,” Arche tried to explain. 

The arrangement was a surprising reprieve for Raine. It didn’t take a lot of extra effort to include Arche in the curriculum she had already laid out for Genis and the lessons meant she didn’t have to watch over Genis every second of the day. She was able to work on other things.

Genis and Arche got along well. Genis was mature for his age, and Arche seemed to flip from incurable immaturity to a quiet wisdom that made Raine wonder how old the half-elf was. Arche looked like she may have been in her early or mid twenties, but it was likely that her physical aging had stopped years ago. 

After the magic lessons Arche would fly off on her broomstick (something Genis showed no interest in, though Raine wouldn’t have minded learning how to fly). Raine had no idea where Arche would go for the rest of the day, other than that she was “searching for a way home.” Raine wasn’t sure she even understood where Arche was from. Iselia? 

Arche inevitably showed up around dinner time, often bringing ingredients and cooking the meal herself. She had started doing this after the first meal Raine offered her.

Arche had taken a bite and broke out laughing. “This tastes like my old cooking!”

Raine wasn’t sure what that meant, but she saw Arche give a pitying glance to Genis (who always refused to eat his vegetables. Raine wasn’t sure why --she always smothered them in something sweet to make them more palatable) and Arche took over the kitchen after that.

“Here Genis, let me show you how to make a sandwich,” she heard Arche offering a month later, after she had a better grasp on common. “It’s easy!”

Genis ran into the kitchen. Raine watched with approval then returned to her textbook. She was glad Genis was so eager to learn new things.

After that, Genis would make everyone sandwiches for lunch.

Secretly, Raine was mostly grateful for Arche’s presence in the evenings, after Genis had gone to bed. Raine would still up late, pouring over her books. Sometimes out of personal interest, but often out of the desire to learn more about the world, to learn more about how she had ended up in this world.

Arche was a night owl and would keep her company, and the two would talk about random things. Raine found she got very little studying done during that time, but enjoyed the conversations more. 

One day, Raine worked up the courage to ask a question she had been wondering. “Why do you wear all black? Are you in mourning?”

Arche nodded. “All of my friends are dead,” she answered brightly.

Raine cringed. “I’m sorry.”

Arche shook her head. “It had to happen. It’s the consequence of being a half-elf with human friends. We outlive everyone.”

“I don’t want any human friends,” Raine said sharply. She covered her mouth, realizing too late that may have been insensitive.

“Is that why you live so far away from any towns?” Arche asked.

“It’s safer here! People are less likely to notice that we’re half-elves,” Raine explained in a hushed tone. 

Arche glanced over to the bedroom where Genis was already curled and asleep. “It’s risky,” Arche agreed. “For a lot of reasons. But I’ve had a lot of human friends and I want to make more in the future. The reward is worth the risk of betrayal… and the pain of their dying.”

Raine scowled. “I won’t do it. Never again. Besides, I’d rather be friends with people who won’t die on me.” She peeked shyly at Arche. Arche was still frowning in Genis’ directions.

“It’s fine if you don’t want friends, but what about Genis? He seems lonely, y’know? Don’t you think he deserves kids his age to play with?”

Guilt pounded on Raine’s chest and she went back to the book she was reading, but she had a hard time concentrating on the words.

**

Arche kept many thoughts and concerns to herself. In the past, she would have shared them instantaneously, but her past was in the future… a future that the half-elves Raine and Genis probably wouldn’t even live to see.

She hid the thought that Genis had the potential to become one of the most powerful sages the world had ever seen. His intelligence for his age was one thing (Raine was already teaching him math more advanced than anything Arche ever managed to learn) (of course, Arche had been terrible at math, but still!) but even more impressive was his mana sensitivity.

At night, when Genis poured over books at the table before going to bed, his eyes would catch on the dozen rings that Arche wore.

It took awhile for Arche to pick up on his intense interest.

“Your rings are pretty,” he tried one night. Later, Arche would realize that the boy (the brat!) was testing her grasp on common.

“Thank you!” she had replied obliviously at the time.

Later, with the rings shining in his eyes, he asked, “where did you get your rings?”

“From a friend,” Arche answered.

“Who?”

Arche picked at her dark clothes. She had chosen to move on, to try and live and be happy, but she wanted some reminder of the friends she had lost. Permanent mourning dress had been her solution and her outfits became increasingly black and gloomy over the years as she lost friend after friend. “He’s dead now,” she said in common, because explaining Klarth (who technically hadn’t been born yet) in a language she barely understood would have taken too much mental and emotional effort.

Next, Genis had finally tried getting to the point of his inquiry. “There’s a lot of mana in those rings.”

Arche froze, realizing at last why Genis kept bringing up the rings. He could feel the complex magic that allowed them to create a pact with summon spirits.

“Ye-es,” she agreed.

“What do they do?”

“Er…” Arche stumbled for words. The rings weren’t supposed to created for… well for a long time. Probably. She couldn’t remember when exactly they had been invented, but it was before the dwarves had got extinct. The concern that perhaps she shouldn’t the secret of relics from the future nagged at her.

“They do… things I don’t know how to explain,” Arche offered, choosing to fall on the excuse that her elven wasn’t good enough. Genis looked disappointed. After that night, Arche tried to keep her rings hidden from view.

Raine’s eyes would flick up during these conversations. Raine was young but very shrewd. “Those rings aren’t dangerous, are they?” she asked one day in her archaic version of elven.

It amused Arche to hear the archaic words spoken so casually. She supposed she should have been impressed with the language instead. Even though they lived four thousand years apart, elven had barely changed in that time and was still fully comprehensible. Meanwhile, how many completely unrelated variations of common had Arche heard in her time travels? Too many.

Arche laughed, not because of Raine’s archaic speech, but because of the ridiculousness of the thought. “The rings aren’t dangerous,” she assured the cautious older sister. “Right now they’re next to useless.” It saddened her how much that was true.

The spirits had been sealed away. After summoning them with the rings had failed (Arche had managed to summon Aska, who was useless as always with Luna as an interpreter), Arche had sought out their temples during the day, when she had time to herself away from the siblings. 

(The time travel shouldn’t have been the problem. Arche remembered Klarth assuring everyone that the spirits existed beyond the mortal comprehension of time and that the rings assured the bond would remain intact. Of course, Klarth had been dead for so long in the future, perhaps Arche misremembered his words).

Arche could find four of the spirits sealed away, but the temples for the rest were completely missing. The world that Arche knew had been cleaved in half.

That detail had definitely been missing from her history books.

The detail was also missing from every other source on Sylverant. No one else seemed to possess the awareness that something was wrong with the current world --no one but Raine Sage.

Raine Sage had asked if she was from Tethe’alla, and then from Sylverant. To Arche those were just the names of the moons. But only one moon, the one Arche recognized as Tethe’alla, orbited the world, and the locals called their planet Sylverant. 

If Raine’s questioning was any indication, there should be another world called Tethe’alla. Most likely the missing temples were there --including the temple of Origin (still probably hidden away in the elven village, where the long-memoried elves might have answers to her other questions).

Arche needed to travel to Tethe’alla next. With that in mind, she studied the space-time warp and developed a spell during her free time that, with the power of the Eternal Sword, would take her to the other world. She hoped. By the time she had finished the spell, Genis had mastered fireball, cookies, and sandwiches, and Arche felt like that was a good place to leave him. All that was left was saying goodbye to Raine. 

**

Raine looked up with surprise when Arche landed in front of the house. It was hours before dinner. She had a bad feeling.

“You’re back early,” Raine said, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Arche nodded, her face solemn. “I may have found a way back home.”

Raine held her breath.

“If it works, and I leave, I don’t think I’ll be able to come back.”

“Do you have to go?” Raine asked.

Arche gave her a guilty smile. “Honestly, it’s kind of risky for me to stick around here. If I cause too much chaos, I could mess with the fate of the world. Heck, I could wipe myself out of existence!” Arche blinked. “That’d cause all sorts of problems.”

Raine didn’t understand. “But what about Genis? His lessons?”

“He can already cast fireball, and he’s got a grasp on the concept of elemental magic. As long as he practices, he should be able to figure out the rest on his own. He’s really smart, y’know?”

“B-but he’ll get lonely… again,” Raine said. Her hands clasped in front of her and she stared at them, instead of Arche.

Arche stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Raine. “I know, you were both lonely, weren’t you? I’m sorry I can’t stay here longer, but trust me when I say it could cause problems.”

Raine closed her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t cried since her mother first abandoned her and Genis. Now she felt like she was being abandoned again.

“You’ll be fine,” Arche assured her. “I know it’s scary, but you’re kind and brilliant. You’ll find people who are worth the pain. Actually, I think they’ll find you.”

“Why’s that?” Raine asked, leaning against Arche.

“Because you’ll do your best to avoid them, but they’ll seek you out anyway because you’re too amazing to ignore.”

Raine laughed weakly as Arche squeezed her tight one last time then let go.

Stepping backwards, Arche flicked her finger and her broomstick danced to her side. Then she held her hand out in front of her, summoning the sword that Raine hadn’t seen since their first meeting.

“Tell Genis good bye for me, okay?” Arche asked.

Raine nodded.

Arche raised the sword and closed her eyes. One blinding explosion of mana later, and Arche Klein, Witch of Time, was gone.

**

“Genis, we’re going to move,” Raine announced one day after yet another short trip into town. Though young, she could trust Genis to look after himself for short periods of time.

Genis jumped to his feet, abandoning his pile of books. “What? Why? Did someone find out about us?”

“No, no,” Raine lifted her hands. “There was a flyer in palmacosta for a teaching job. I think they were trying to get someone from the school to accept, but no one wanted to take the risk of traveling that far, but I had a good feeling about the location.”

“A teaching job?”

Raine nodded, smiling softly. “We’ll have a house in the town this time, and you’ll be able to make some friends. It’ll be a good thing.”

Raine could barely make out the muted glimmer of excitement in Genis’ eyes. “Where are we moving to?”

“A place called Iselia. Now, let’s start packing.”

**Author's Note:**

> Edited 7/31 with another scene from Arche's perspective, a better explanation for the language problems, and correcting one instance of Master Sword to Eternal Sword (you can tell I've played LoZ more recently than ToS or ToP XD)  
> I'm trying to improve my writing, so feel free to share constructive criticism. Thank you!


End file.
